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Season’s Greetings—Helen Simpson and Robert Douglas-Fairhurst mull over Dickens at Christmas with Alex Clark Where would we be without Charles Dickens? The biographer and academic Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and short story writer Helen Simpson join Alex Clark for a very festive edition of the Vintage Podcast.

Motherhood by Helen Simpson, Vintage Minis 2017. Five stories on motherhood, selected from Dear George, Hey Yeah Right Get a Life and Constitutional, in Vintage’s new wittily designed Minis series. See more on the Penguin website.

Red, white and blue jacket for Knopf’s 2017 edition of Cockfosters. “If it were easy to explain what Helen Simpson can do with a story, more writers would be fashioning such jewels…What more does one want in a short story besides memorable characters, comic timing, originality, economy and poignancy? And heart. All there.” Elinor Lipman, …

If the heart of Bloomsbury is the British Museum, then the British Museum Reading Room was until recently at the very heart of its heart. I used to go there in the 1980s, when this central domed chamber (only 2ft less in diameter than the Roman Pantheon) still housed the British Library. Walking over from …

Halfway through our interview, Helen Simpson begins to worry about the time. We’d frittered the first few minutes on general civilities, and squandered several more fiddling with books and bags and glasses of water. Now the clock is ticking, and we’re paying for our profligacy. “We’ve only got an hour,” she frowns. “How far in are we?” …

By Jonathan Gharraie I met Helen Simpson for a genial pub lunch near Dartmouth Park in North London on the day she received the American edition of In-Flight Entertainment: Stories. She was evidently quite pleased by the book’s spare but elegant design, which looks through an airplane window onto a locket of cerulean sky. I’m tempted …

Helen Simpson by K. J. Orr Short Fiction in Theory and Practice, Vol 1, Issue 1, March 2011 (ISSN 20430701) EXCERPT SFTP: When did you start writing stories? HS: At university. I entered a short story competition in Isis. That’s how I heard about Angela Carter. Brian Aldiss was judging, and he said something like, This …

Helen Simpson’s new year’s resolution is to read one short story before she gets out of bed every morning. “I like the idea of something complete, one short story with a cup of tea – you’d have stolen a march on the day. If people can meditate or do yoga or whatever, I don’t see …